If you accept it to be natural and normal to be gay then it follows it is not right for two folk who love each other to be denied marriage.

We have a prime minister, I'm the foreign minister, I'm trying to get on with the job of doing Australia's foreign policy.

A core challenge for Australia is - how do we best prepare ourselves for the Asia Pacific century - to maximise the opportunities, to minimise the threats and to make our own active contribution to making this Asia-Pacific Century peaceful, prosperous and sustainable for us all.

I am determined to honour the confidence which has been extended to us by the people of our great land. And I say to all of those who have voted for us today, I say to each and every one of them that I will be a prime minister for all Australians.

My task, as a member of this parliament and a 30-year member of the Australian Labor Party, as its former leader, as its former foreign minister and its former prime minister, is to now throw my every effort in securing Julia Gillard's re-election as Labor prime minister at the next election.

But Australia faces additional regional and global challenges also crucial to our nation's future - climate change, questions of energy and food security, the rise of China and the rise of India. And we need a strong system of global and regional relationships and institutions to underpin stability.

A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia.